Be Social -- Call a Meeting

My four-year-old daughter is a Disney Pixar fan, and one of her recent favorites to watch again and again is Wall•E, a futuristic story of a hard-working little robot who saves a spaceship full of humans from an evil computer, kind of like Stanley Kubrick for pre-schoolers.  The humans spend their days communicating with each other via touch screens that float in front of their faces.  Even when seated side-by-side, they have no personal contact.  Golf games, conversations and social activities all take place in a virtual world.

Now, if you take a look around your office, you’ll probably notice that we’re not far from that today.  How much of your communication at work is electronic compared to face-to-face?  Do you have MSN running?  Do you have Facebook up?  Are your friends helping you farm?  If you want to join a colleague for lunch, are you more likely to send a text message, or to walk over to her desk and ask face to face? 

Yes, it’s true that electronic media and social networking enable you to keep in contact with all of your friends, but the face-to-face element, especially on your job, is minimized.
 
This is why I think face-to-face business meetings during your work day deserve a better reputation than they have.  Meetings are your opportunity to reestablish human contact with your colleagues and experience human interaction face to face.  Subtle nonverbal communicative signals that are lost in cyberspace can be enjoyed face-to-face.  Emotions absent from text and difficult to express in written words can be interpreted immediately simply by reading a facial expression.
  

The reason why business people view meetings as tolerably useful at best and agonizingly wasteful at worst is because we’re losing the idea that a face-to-face business meeting is an opportunity for social interaction.  Instead, we’re thinking that meetings take us away from our ‘real work’, which takes place on the screen back at our desks.
 
Perpetuating these ideas may lead to social disaster.  Decades of psychological research confirms that interpersonal contact is essential for normal human existence.  Social isolation is harmful, and business meetings offer the opportunity for us to be social with each other during our workday, even though the topic of discussion may be business.

Dr Richard Arvey of the National University of Singapore points out that Facebook’s popularity suggests how people may be hungrier for social friends than can be satisfied in their present day-to-day work and personal lives.
 
And I’d like to suggest that realigning your attitude towards business meetings will not only make you grateful for social interaction with your colleagues, but will also make your meetings more productive.

Is Teleconferencing Cheaper than Business Travel?

How much of your time at work is spent in business meetings?  Statistics show that your average employees attend meetings between 25 to 40% of their workday.  Figures for upper management are even higher.  Because of the investment of time, money and human resources, business meetings are becoming an expensive way to get business done.

As a result, many companies are cutting back on the amount of time that they spend in face-to-face meetings and are turning to other communications channels instead.  Cost considerations have resulted in more teleconferences, videoconferences, and even simple e-mail messages.  This is particularly true at the upper management level, where face-to-face meetings often involve air travel and hotel accommodations.  Many companies believe that a videoconference can be just as effective as a face-to-face meeting and the cost saving is considerable.

But is this really true?  No one disagrees that a videoconference is cheaper than an air ticket in the short run, but when it comes to effectiveness, can a videoconference really replace a face-to-face meeting and will it save money in the long run? 

Whether to invest in a long-distance face-to-face meeting or to simply rely on other forms of electronic communications can be a tough choice to make.  However, carefully considering both the process and the outcomes expected from the meeting will provide you the criteria you need to make the choice easier.

Long-distance meetings that are mostly informational can probably be conducted electronically.  For example, for technical updates, Intel in Penang conducts teleconferences with all participants viewing the same PowerPoint presentation on their networked laptops.  Your company probably does something similar.  Meetings of this sort require little collaboration, and the participants’ role is to listen passively to the presenter unless they have questions at the end.

On the other hand, videoconferences allow participants to check their e-mail, send text messages, and carry on with their work.  They may not pay attention.  That’s why meetings that require coordination, collaboration, group processes and consensus must be conducted face-to-face. 

Studies on business communications have shown that the communication channel used for a meeting is likely to affect the outcome.  Face-to-face meetings encourage participants to collaborate and engage each other.  Persuasion and consensus are more easily achieved as a result. 

Videoconferences and teleconferences may save you a little money in the short run.  However, when it comes to the quality of your meeting outcomes, think twice.  Spending on travel expenses now could save you more in the long run.

You're Invited to a Meeting...

Twenty-five years ago here in Kuala Lumpur, the public sector and private sector employees would take off from work an hour apart.  Public sector employees took off at 4:30 and private sector employees took off at 5:30.  The ostensible reason for this was to minimize rush-hour traffic.
 
Today this seems like a fantasy.  For one thing, with the number of cars on the road, rush-hour traffic is here to stay.  Furthermore, with the amount of work that today’s employees say they need to do, taking off at 6:30, 7:30 and even 9:00pm has become the norm.  Look around your office.  Your staff have obvious demands on their time.

This being true, the last thing your staff wants is to attend another meeting where their presence isn’t required.  Meetings take time, and that time must be spent productively for your staff to feel a sense of purpose and achievement.
 
That’s why choosing the list of attendees thoughtfully and carefully is important to the success of your business meetings.  Having the right people there ensures that everyone’s time is invested into a common purpose and that all affected stakeholders can share in the decision-making process.
 

People who should be invited to attend your meetings primarily include the subject matter experts and the key decision makers.  These are the people who have the knowledge and the data relative to the purpose of the meeting and key senior management who will authorize decisions made in the outcome.  Additionally, representatives of the staff whose jobs are directly affected by the objectives of the meeting should attend.  These are the people who can provide input necessary to influence the decision-making process.

Some of your staff should not be invited to attend.  These include the people who are not affected by the meeting’s objectives as these staff will find it difficult to contribute to the process.  Very often you may have people attending your meetings who remain silent throughout, and although you may wish that they’d contribute, is it possible that they have no ownership in the meeting and, as a result, have nothing to invest?  Think about it.  Why have people at your meeting who neither need nor want to be there?

Having clear, goal-oriented objectives is the first step towards successful business meetings.  Having the right attendees who can invest in the process helps you ensure that these objectives are met.